Looking for something to read? Here are five crucial July titles

Baseball, arson and horror. It is summer, you maybe have some time on your hands, here are five books you should check out.

The streets is cold and the beaches is warm (Alissa Nutting hails from Florida)

“Made for Love: A Novel” by Alissa Nutting (Ecco). The author of the rather explicit and fascinating “Tampa” chronicles Hazel, who moves into a trailer park with her father and his sex doll to escape her tech-mogul husband Byron Gogol after he suggests connecting their brains via microchip. Sounds awesomely bonkers. (out now)

“American Fire” by Monica Hesse (Liveright). Washington Post reporter Hesse explores a series of arsons that took place in Accomack County on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Once it was a wealthy agricultural community; now, it is one of the poorest places in the Commonwealth. Hesse unpacks the complex story of a weird series of crimes and a confession that gets weirder the more she looks into it. (out now)

“Sting-Ray Afternoon: A Memoir” by Steve Rushin (Little, Brown). Outstanding sportswriter, travel writer and novelist Steve Rushin takes us back to the Me Decade for a laugh out loud look at a 1970s childhood. We are now as far from the 1977 as we were from 1947 in 1987. THINK ABOUT IT. (out now)

“The Streak: Lou Gehrig, Cal Ripken, Jr., and Baseball’s Most Historic Record” by John Eisenberg (Houghton Mifflin). Lou Gehrig’s 2,130 consecutive games played was once called unbreakable...until Baltimore Orioles short stop Cal Ripken, Jr. broke it and retired in 1998 with an jaw-dropping 2,632. Eisenberg looks at both streaks and takes them apart, puts them in context and unpacks the legend of both extraordinary athletes.